What We Do

For over a century, the Ontario SPCA and Humane Society has provided province-wide leadership on matters relating to the prevention of cruelty to animals and the promotion of Animal Welfare.

Working with its Communities of Ontario SPCA Animal Centres and Affiliated Societies, the Ontario SPCA educates on humane and appropriate animal care, reduces pet overpopulation through Spay/Neuter Services, raises awareness about unacceptable practices that harm animals, investigates cruelty complaints, rescues animals in distress, brings perpetrators of cruelty to court and provides care to all animals in need.

All of these efforts in support of Animal Welfare fall within several core programs and services offered by the Ontario SPCA:

Rescue & ReliefTM

What makes the Ontario SPCA unique amongst Animal Welfare organizations in Ontario is that it’s mandated to enforce animal cruelty laws under the Ontario SPCA Act, which provides Ontario SPCA investigators with police powers to do so.

The Ontario SPCA investigators provide frontline protection for animals across Ontario by responding to nearly 18,000 animal cruelty complaints each year and rescuing injured, abandoned and abused animals. Animals that are removed through investigations are triaged with the assistance of a veterinarian and provided with immediate care.

Ontario SPCA adoption centres are located throughout the province and help many wonderful pets, including cats, dogs, birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, horses, farm animals and more, find their forever home. Ontario SPCA animal centres use the ASPCA’s Meet Your Match® program, the only method of its kind that evaluates an animal’s behavior and matches them to an adopter’s preferences to help them find a compatible pet.

Spay/Neuter

Ontario SPCA staff and volunteers work tirelessly to help create a better life for animals. One of the ways they do that is through Ontario SPCA Spay/Neuter Services. These services are a high volume, self-sustaining operation that tackle the pet overpopulation. Shelters, rescue groups and members of the public are welcome, regardless of geography or income level.

Shelter Health and Wellness

The Ontario SPCA offers training sessions throughout the year for Animal Welfare organizations. It also promotes the Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters to help provide the global Animal Welfare community with a comprehensive tool that helps organizations align their activities with recommended practices on all aspects of care.

The Ontario SPCA offers an elective focused on the growing field of shelter medicine to “phase 4” students of the Ontario Veterinary College. Topics covered include intake examination and protocols, observation period activities and assessments, behavior assessments, adoption strategies, zoonoses and staff and public health, infection and disease control principles and practices, and societal and animal welfare issues.

New to the Shelter Health and Wellness program is the Shelter Health Pro website, which saves lives with the most current best practices.

Feral Cat Support

To assist caretakers in managing feral cat colonies, the Ontario SPCA offers a Feral Cat Trap Depot program to trap, neuter and return the stray cat population; a free feral food bank to provide a sustainable support of food to colony caretakers; and feral cat shelters to provide a warm, safe place for cat colonies during the cold winter months. More information can be found on the Ontario SPCA website.

Service to the North

The Ontario SPCA works with northern communities to help reduce pet overpopulation by transferring stray animals to animal centres throughout the province to find them forever homes. It also provides spay/neuter services, microchipping and vaccinations for local pets.

Humane Education & Animal Care

The Ontario SPCA seeks to undermine cruelty and neglect and increase awareness about responsible pet ownership through the promotion of humane education and animal care. The complex topic of humane education is approached in two ways at the Ontario SPCA:

Humane Education Campaigns, which are aimed at educating the public and our Communities through targeted awareness campaigns.

Humane Education Programs, which are predominately geared towards youth to encourage and empower them to be a more informed, respectful and compassionate generation. Programming includes, but is not limited to, children’s camps, extra curricular programming and our elementary school curriculum, which is currently available at the Grade 2 level.